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A question I received: If we want to restrict our egoism, does that mean we need to abstain from pleasures?

My Answer: That is not the way of Kabbalah. The Creator wants us to receive pleasure and as we advance He teaches us how to take pleasure from increasingly refined and exalted sources.

That is why He wants us to grow, and to that end he gives us what we deem suffering, but in reality is not suffering, but pleasure!

He is giving us the opportunity to experience a more exalted pleasure, which for the moment doesn’t attract us, but rather torments us.

Think of a little girl who likes playing with her doll. Her mother asks her to play with her little brother, but she doesn’t want to play with him! She doesn’t think of a real baby as pleasure. For her the real pleasure is her doll!

Therefore, the suffering that I feel as coming to me from the Creator actually shows me my next state, to which I will ascend if I assume the suffering correctly.

It is only when we are ready to progress toward more exalted pleasures that they are shown to us in their corrected form.

All we need to do is change our attitude toward them from reception to bestowal, whereupon we will feel the next spiritual degree.

That is why we must always increase the quality of the pleasure we seek. For the moment we perceive that as suffering, but when we finally open our eyes we will see that there was never any suffering to begin with.